How to Make Custom Mugs to Sell Online: 7 Core Steps

Choosing the right mug is the first step in learning how to make custom mugs to sell successfully. You need to understand your audience, design mugs they actually want, and choose a reliable way to produce and fulfill orders. This guide walks you through each step to help you turn personalized mugs into a profitable business.

How to Make Custom Mugs to Sell: 7 Core Steps

While the workflow is simple: create a custom mug design > publish a custom mug to your store > get custom orders > printing and shipping, the process needs to be broken down. Learn how to make and sell custom mugs through the 7 core steps here:

1. Choose a profitable mug type to customize
2. Select the right printing method for custom mugs
3. Find a reliable custom mug provider
4. Create high-converting custom mug designs
5. Set up mug customization options
6. Calculate costs and pricing for personalized mugs
7. Market and sell your custom mugs

Here you go!

Step 1: Choose a Profitable Mug Type to Customize

Custom mugs come in many variations based on material, shape, and size. Each option appeals to a different buyer intent. Here are the most popular mug types to customize:

• Mug materials: Ceramic, stoneware, stainless steel, glass, plastic, paper, or styrofoam.
• Mug shapes: Round belly, small abby, straight, footed, tankard, flare, etc.
• Mug sizes: 11oz, 15oz, 20oz to 30oz.

With the profit margin around 30% to 60%, here are the most profitable custom mugs to sell:

• Custom ceramic coffee mugs: Ideal for daily use, gifts, and personalization with names, photos, or quotes. They are affordable, durable, widely supported by POD providers, and offer excellent print quality. The best-selling sizes are 11oz and 15oz.
• Custom stainless steel mugs and tumblers: Best for commuters, outdoor lovers, and travel enthusiasts. They retain temperature well, feel premium, and work great for lifestyle. You can sell them at higher prices. Top-sellers are 20oz, 30oz, and Stanley-style travel mugs.

Tip: Always choose a custom mug that your target audience already loves and uses. When the product fits naturally into their daily routine, personalized designs feel more valuable. And you sell more easily.

Making custom coffee mugs to sell is promising

Step 2: Select the Right Printing Method for Custom Mugs

Learning how to make custom mugs to sell requires selecting the right printing method, as this affects mug quality, durability, production speed, and scalability. Understanding common printing methods for custom mugs can help you start strategically:

• Sublimation printing: Best for custom ceramic mugs with straight or slightly curved shapes, and it remains the most popular method in print-on-demand. It delivers vibrant, full-wrap designs with long-lasting and dishwasher-safe results.
• UV printing: Fits stainless steel, glass, and plastic mugs, and it continues to grow in popularity for premium drinkware. It supports full-color designs on many materials.
• Heat press (vinyl or transfer paper): Works well for ceramic mugs and simple designs, and many DIY sellers use it for small batches. It keeps startup costs low but offers limited durability and poor scalability.
• DTG printing: Applies to flat or lightly curved ceramic mugs and handles detailed artwork. It sees low adoption for mugs due to lower durability compared to sublimation.

Insights: Print-on-demand sellers often choose sublimation or UV printing for custom mugs to balance quality, efficiency, and scalability.

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Step 3: Find a Reliable Custom Mug Provider

While making custom mugs to sell, a reliable custom mug provider helps you deliver consistent quality and scale with confidence. You should look for providers that offer high-quality mugs, compatible printing methods, fast production and shipping (fulfillment), and responsive customer support to avoid delays and unhappy customers.

Save the top-notch custom mug providers to sell with:

• merchOne (best for the EU market): Formerly Picanova, ideal for high-volume sellers. It provides fast shipping and a 48-hour fulfillment promise. They are famous for allowing you to keep selling later into the Christmas season than almost any other provider.
• Dreamship (best for the US market): Highly recommended for scale and speed. They offer the "white edge-to-edge mug," which allows for a full print on the mug, along with skinny tumblers, whiskey glasses, and more.
• Printify (best overall): Known for the largest network of print locations. It allows you to choose specific printing hubs (like Printed Mint or District Photo) to optimize for the fastest shipping or lowest base cost (starting around $4.69 for a standard ceramic mug).
• Printful (best quality control): While slightly more expensive, Printful owns its fulfillment centers, ensuring more consistent print quality and premium packaging options. They are the top choice for Stainless Steel tumblers and laser-engraved drinkware.

Step 4: Design High-converting Custom Mugs

This is the most important step when learning how to make custom mugs to sell. The goal of this step is to create a finished mug design that looks great in real life and sells well online.

Here's how to design custom mugs to sell online:

• Get design inspiration: Research best-selling custom mug designs on marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon. You can also analyze competitor stores and collaborate with independent artists.
• Prepare design resources: Download assets such as fonts, graphics, and illustrations. Popular sources include Creative Fabrica, Freepik, and artist-owned libraries.
• Create the design file: Match your canvas ratio to the mug's printable area. Leave safe margins near the top, bottom, and handle to prevent peeling or cut-offs. Use 300 DPI resolution in CMYK format to maintain color accuracy and avoid blurry prints.
• Design the layout: Add text, images, patterns, or graphics, and arrange them in a balanced layout. Simple designs with custom photos and text are evergreen ideas.

Note: It is crucial to respect copyright laws to design resources to avoid infringing on the intellectual property rights of others.

Mug's print area does not divide into the front or back as T-shirts

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Step 5: Set Up Mug Customization Options

Mug customization turns a standard design into a personal product. This step focuses on defining what buyers can personalize and ensuring the customization process stays simple, clear, and error-free.

Popular mug customization options to sell include:

• Custom text: Names, dates, short quotes, or short phrases like "Best Dad Ever."
• Photo upload: Customer images for family, pets, or special memories.
• Clipart preset: Illustrations for characters, pets, or any pre-designed symbols for customers.
• Combination customization: Text + photo upload and clipart + text.
• Other personalization: moon phases, maps, songs, etc.

Tips: Limit the number of customization fields to avoid overwhelming buyers. Show a real-time preview so customers see exactly how their mug will look before checkout.

A personalized photo mug trending this 2026

Step 6: Calculate Costs and Pricing for Personalized Mugs

Your cost should highest possible cost to protect your margin. To make custom mugs to sell profitably, you must calculate all expenses, including:

• Base mug cost: blank mug price and fulfillment fee by your provider.
• Platform fees: marketplace commissions, payment processing, or app subscriptions.
• Marketing costs: ads, promotions, or influencer collaborations.

After calculating the total cost, you add a margin for the last price. Because personalization adds perceived value, you can price custom mugs 30%–60% higher than standard mugs.

Here's an example of pricing a custom mug in a real selling scenario: you sell a 11oz white edge-to-edge mug, fulfill through Dreamship, and list on Etsy for US customers.

• Base mug cost: $9.08 ($4.09 blank mug + $4.99 shipping)
• Platform fees + marketing fees: $4.00
• Total cost: $13.08
• Profit margin: 40%
• Price: $24.42 ($13.08 + $13.08 x 40%)

Bonus: Want to know if this price fits the typical market range for a custom mug? Use Teeinblue's product pricing calculator!

Step 7: Market and Sell Your Custom Mugs

An effective POD marketing strategy requires reaching the right audience and highlighting personalization value. Don't forget to apply proven methods for custom mug marketing:

• Optimize product pages with detailed descriptions and relevant keywords.
• Run targeted ads on social platforms to reach your target customers.
• Run seasonal promotions on holidays like Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, or Christmas to increase urgency and conversions.
• Offer bulk discounts with lower prices for larger quantities, encouraging customers to buy more mugs at once for events or teams.

Essential Tools to Create and Sell Custom Mugs

Having the right tools is essential for how to make custom mugs to sell. You need tools to support design, personalization, and fulfillment:

• Design tools: Graphic design software or platforms like Photoshop and Canva. They help you create high-quality mug artwork, manage dimensions, and export print-ready files.
• Product customizer tools: Apps that let customers personalize mugs with text, photos, or preset options, such as Teeinblue.
• Fulfillment tools: Print-on-demand platforms that handle mug production, printing, packing, and shipping without inventory, such as Gelato, CustomCat, Printful, or Printify personalization tool.

Custom mugs with family clipart

Grow Your Custom Mug Business With Teeinblue

Teeinblue helps you sell custom mugs at scale with unlimited options and an easy workflow. Here are more:

• AI personalization: Automatically transform customers' images into stunning styles.
• Unlimited custom options: Let customers customize text, images, and more without limits.
• Live preview: Show real-time previews so buyers see exactly what they will receive.
• Free design assets: Start faster with ready-to-use mug design templates and clipart.
• Simple workflow: Design, configure options, and connect with your mugs.
• Automated POD fulfillment: Send orders directly to global POD providers in clicks.
• Print-ready files: Generate production-ready files that meet printer requirements every time.
• Sell on multiple platforms: Manage and sell custom mugs across Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, and more.

Check out how simple Teeinblue is in this video!

FAQs: Make Custom Mugs to Sell

1 - Is selling custom mugs still profitable?

Yes, selling custom mugs is still profitable. The profit margin of a personalized mug business may reach up to 60% with unique designs, reliable mug provider, and efficient marketing. Customized mugs also play a major role in driving the global mug market (Data Bridge).

2 - Where can you sell custom mugs?

You can sell custom mugs on marketplaces like Etsy, Merch by Amazon, or Redbubble for minimal setup. Especially, you can utilize their built-in traffic and minimal setup. However, as your business grows, these platforms can limit advanced personalization options, branding, and integrations. To gain full control, e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento give you greater flexibility to build and expand a custom mug brand.

3 - What are the best designs for custom mugs?

The best designs for custom mugs focus on personalization and everyday use, such as name, quotes, photos, family, couple, and pet clipart. Seasonal designs for holidays and events also perform well. These occasions include Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Halloween, and Christmas.

4 - What is the best product customizer for custom mugs?

Teeinblue stands out as the best product customizer for selling custom mugs online. It delivers a simple workflow, user-friendly interface, unlimited custom options, AI-powered personalization, and live previews. It helps to automate print-ready file generation. It also directly integrates with top print-on-demand providers, automating fulfillment.

Hope this article provides you with a practical guideline on how to make custom mugs to sell. Start by choosing the right products, tools, and providers to support personalization and growth. Join the Teeinblue Global Community to connect, learn, and grow your custom mug business faster.

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